Introduction: Acute chemotherapy toxicity is common and can have negative
effects for the patient and health economy and hospitalisation can be
necessitated.
Aims: To identify the incidence of toxicity and admission, and predictors of
toxicity occurrence, severity, hospitalisation and length of stay.
Method: Data was obtained from a proactive telephone assessment of acute
toxicity 24 hours after administration of a first cycle of chemotherapy to patients
in a large UK NHS teaching hospital.
Results: 1539 patients were studied and the overall incidence of toxicity was
35.6% (530 patients). Disease site and number of chemotherapy agents given
were shown to predict toxicity, with breast and upper gastrointestinal cancers
having a higher likelihood of toxicity. Disease was predictive of toxicity grade,
with urology, gynaecology and lung cancer patients experiencing higher grades
of toxicity than other tumour sites. The rate of hospital admission due to toxicity
was 13.1% (203 patients) and median length of stay 3 days (1-28). The risk of
admission had some risk factors in common with toxicity. Disease and the
number of drugs in the regimen affected the risk of admission, with
gynaecology, head and neck and lung cancer patients and patients who
received 3 drugs having a higher likelihood of admission. Predictors in the subgroups
of breast, colorectal and lung cancer patients did not differ greatly from
the whole population and the number of drugs was shown to be a predictor of
nausea, vomiting and fatigue when explored as secondary outcomes.
Conclusion: The research partly addressed the main aim and highlighted
areas where further research is required.
Keywords
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/17448 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Malton, Samuel R. |
| Contributors | Silcock, Jonathan, Scally, Andy J. |
| Publisher | University of Bradford, University of Bradford, Faculty of Life Sciences |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, doctoral, DPharm |
| Rights | <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br />The University of Bradford theses are licenced under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/">Creative Commons Licence</a>. |
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